The geography and topography of the Kyrgyz Republic makes it one of the most hazard-prone countries in Central Asia. Available data suggest that natural hazards incur major economic losses on these countries, with costs between 0.5 and 1.3% of annual gross domestic product. Rising temperatures, changing hydrology conditions, and frequency of extreme weather events associated with climate change will exacerbate the Kyrgyz Republic’s vulnerability and reduce ability to manage extreme events unless the appropriate adaptation measures are put in place. Drought is a common occurrence in the country, as are land and mudslides, avalanches, squalls, downpours, icing, frosts, breakthrough of glacial lakes, floods, rise of sub-soil waters, epidemics, pests, crop diseases, and river erosion, and earthquakes, of which the country experiences 3,000 to 5,000 every year.
This section provides a summary of key natural hazards and their associated socioeconomic impacts in a given country. And it allows quick evaluation of most vulnerable areas through the spatial comparison of natural hazard data with development data, thereby identifying exposed livelihoods and natural systems.
The charts provide overview of the most frequent natural disaster in a given country and understand the impacts of those disasters on human populations.
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Climate change is now recognized to have a significant impact on disaster management efforts and pose a significant threat to the efforts to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable populations. The demands of disaster risk management are such that concise, clear, and reliable information is crucial. The information presented here offers insight into the frequency, impact and occurrence of natural hazards. Source (PDF)
Understanding natural hazard occurrence as well as historical climate conditions, in relation to development contexts, is critical to understanding a country’s historical vulnerability. This tool allows the visualization of different natural hazards or historical climate conditions with socio-economic and development datasets. Select the Development Context and either a Natural Hazard or Climate Condition and overlay horizontally by sliding the toggle left or right to gain a broader sense of historically vulnerable areas.
Data presented under Historical Climate Conditions are reanalysis products derived from ERA5-Land data. ERA5-Land is a global land-surface dataset at 9 km resolution, consistent with atmospheric data from the ERA5 reanalysis from 1950 onward. Climate reanalyses combine past observations with models to generate consistent time series of multiple climate variables. They provide a comprehensive description of the observed climate as it has evolved during recent decades, on 3D grids at sub-daily intervals.
This data has been collected, aggregated and processed by the Climate Resilience Cluster of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) initiative.
- Nearly all of Kyrgyz Republic is vulnerable to floods and mudflow hazards, which occur frequently across the country. As glaciers continue to melt due to rising temperatures, more intense flooding events in the wintertime (and reduced water flow in the summer) are expected. The Jalal‐Abad, Osh, Batken, Chui, Issyk‐Kul, and Talas regions face the highest risk of floods and mudflows.
- Kyrgyz Republic has 5,000 potentially active landslide sites, the majority of which are found in the south. Intense rainstorms trigger landslides within minutes, as do snowmelts. More than 10,000 homes are located in landslide prone areas; of all natural hazards, landslides cause the most deaths.
More information on natural hazards can be found at ThinkHazard.
- Available data suggests that natural hazards constitute a major part of all economic losses in these countries, with costs between 0.5 and 1.3% of annual gross domestic product. Rising temperatures, changing hydrology conditions and frequency of extreme weather events associated with climate change will exacerbate the Kyrgyz Republic’s vulnerability and reduce ability to manage these events unless the appropriate adaptation measures and put in place.